Chapter 10: The Archive
The storage facility was a low grey building behind a chain-link fence on the eastern edge of the city.
Alonzo arrived at eight-fifteen the following morning with Rosalind's solicitor, a woman named Harriet Vane, who carried a document case and said very little.
The facility manager met them at the gate.
He was a compact man in his sixties who had clearly been called in early and was not pleased about it, but he had the court order in his hand and he understood what it meant.
"Unit forty-seven," he said.
"Leased under a company name.
Vail Holdings."
Harriet looked at Alonzo.
"Terrence Vail," he said.
"Portia's former partner."
"Convenient," Harriet said.
The unit was padlocked.
The facility manager cut it with bolt cutters and stepped back.
Harriet put on gloves before she touched the door.
Inside: metal shelving.
Banker's boxes, labeled in a neat hand.
A fireproof cabinet in the far corner, locked.
And on the shelf nearest the door, a single cardboard box with no label, its flaps folded shut but not sealed.
Harriet opened it first.
Inside were three envelopes.
Two were sealed.
One had been opened and refolded.
She photographed everything before touching it.
The opened envelope contained a property deed.
The cottage.
Rosalind's grandmother's cottage.
The original deed, bearing the original beneficiary's name.
Rosalind's name.
Harriet held it up to the light from the doorway.
She said nothing for a moment.
"This is the original," she said.
"The transfer to Vail Holdings was filed against a copy.
The original was never submitted." She looked at Alonzo.
"Which means the transfer may be legally void.
The deed may still belong to Rosalind under the original instrument."
Alonzo looked at the shelves.
At the boxes.
At the locked cabinet.
"What's in the rest of it?" he said.
It took two hours to go through.
What they found: correspondence between Portia and the solicitor who had filed the amended estate document.
Eleven emails, printed and stored.
Two of them contained explicit instructions to file without Cedric's knowledge.
One contained a payment reference number.
What they also found: a handwritten note in Portia's writing, dated the week after her mother's death, addressed to Terrence Vail.
It read: *The old woman's letter is somewhere in the house.
I've looked everywhere except the east wing.
If it surfaces, we deal with it then.
The vase is the only place left I haven't checked.
I won't touch it.
She'll think I'm sentimental.*
Harriet read it twice.
"She knew about the letter," she said.
"She knew it existed," Alonzo said.
"She didn't know exactly where it was.
And she didn't dare search for it too obviously because Flora would have noticed."
"So she left the vase alone and hoped it would never be found."
"Until a seven-year-old bumped into a table," Alonzo said.
Harriet placed the note into an evidence sleeve.
"I'll need to contact the police," she said.
"This goes beyond civil litigation.
The payment to the solicitor, the instructions to file without consent — this is fraud.
Potentially conspiracy to commit fraud."
"I know," Alonzo said.
"It will become a criminal matter."
"I know," he said again.
He looked at the fireproof cabinet.
"Can we open that?"
The facility manager had a master key for the cabinet locks.
He used it.
Inside: a single USB drive.
A manila folder containing share certificates.
And a photograph.
The photograph was of Rosalind.
She was perhaps twelve years old, standing in front of a small stone cottage, squinting into the sun.
She was holding a bunch of wildflowers.
She was smiling.
On the back, in handwriting Alonzo now recognized, were four words.
*My Rosalind.
My girl.*
Rosalind's grandmother's hand.
Alonzo looked at the photograph for a long moment.
Then he placed it carefully into the evidence sleeve with the other documents.
But he made a note to make sure Rosalind received it when the legal process allowed.
May you like
Some things were evidence.
And some things were just hers.
